*(CNN) — A measure to remove slavery and indentured servitude as punishment for a crime from the constitution of Louisiana failed on Election Day after voters were told to reject it because of confusing and ambiguous language.
Louisiana had been one of five states to put the amendment on its ballot. Voters in Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont approved measures to update their constitutions.
Although the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution prohibited slavery in 1865, it allowed an exception “for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,” and the proposed amendments asked voters to either explicitly rule out slavery and indentured servitude as potential punishments or remove the terms from state law altogether.
In Louisiana, 61% voters rejected the amendment that would have changed the state’s constitution by explicitly prohibiting the punishments.
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Voters had been asked to mark yes or no to the question, “Do you support an amendment to prohibit the use of involuntary servitude except as it applies to the otherwise lawful administration of criminal justice?”
Louisiana State Rep. Edmond Jordan sponsored the ballot initially but later urged voters to reject it. Jordan, a Baton Rouge Democrat, said he turned against the measure after realizing the language was too ambiguous. Jordan said he did not want legal challenges to be left up to the court’s interpretation of the law. He hopes to put a revised amendment on the ballot next year.
“It’s too serious of an issue to leave up to the courts,” Jordan said. “By failing to pass it, we’re no worse off on November 9 than we were on November 7,” Jordan told CNN. “I fully intend to bring it up again.”
Re-enactment of an 1811 Louisiana slave rebellion – Getty
Barry Erwin, president and CEO of Council for a Better Louisiana, said the goal of the measure was to get the “vestiges of the slavery and Jim Crow era” out of the state’s constitution. However, the way it was written may actually have allowed slavery under certain circumstances.
“I don’t think there was any opposition at all to the notion of what the amendment was trying to accomplish,” Erwin said. “I think a lot of groups were poised to support the amendment. But when you read it closely, it didn’t seem to accomplish what everyone thought the intent was.”
Erwin said he hopes that voters will show up to support the measure next year when a clarified version is back on the ballot.
“We all felt like it would be better as opposed to passing it and then having to come back next year and explain to people why this amendment that everybody supported should be thrown out and corrected,” Erwin said. “It would be better just to not pass this and come back with a clean slate and let’s try it again.”
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